Eurosceptic gains in Austria's EU vote: exit polls

(VIENNA) - A eurosceptic campaigner made major gains in Austria's European Parliament election Sunday while the ruling parties both suffered losses, according to exit polls published by national broadcaster ORF after polls closed.

According initial estimates released at 6:00pm (1600 GMT) with 86.6 percent of votes counted, the ruling conservative People's Party was first with 29.7 percent of the vote, down 3.0 percentage points from its result in the 2004 European election.

But its coalition partner, the Social Democrats, saw its support drop a massive 9.5 points to 23.9 percent from 2004, and was expected to lose two deputies in parliament.

Meanwhile, the big gainers were a eurosceptic list led by Hans-Peter Martin, which picked up 17.8 percent of the vote, ORF reported, gaining 3.8 points from the last EU election. It received major support from the country's biggest newspaper, Krone Zeitung.

The far-right also increased its score from the last European election.

The Freedom Party (FPOe) was predicted to get 13.1 percent, up 6.8 points from five years ago, while the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZOe), led by Joerg Haider until his death last year and participating for the first time in European elections, was to take 4.6 percent.

The environmental Greens were also down with 9.4 percent, compared to 12.9 percent in 2004.

Based on these figures, Austria's 17 seats in the European parliament would be distributed as follows: the conservatives would keep their current six seats, ahead of the Social Democrats' five and Hans Peter Martin's three, followed by two for the FPOe and one for the Greens.

This represented a loss for both the Social Democrats and the Greens, who will have one less deputy in parliament.

Martin's list and the FPOe would both gain one seat compared to 2004.

With less than five percent support, the BZOe was not expected to gain a seat.